"Humans are very engineerable. We're lonely, we're flawed, we're moody, and it feels like an AI system with a nice voice could convince us to do basically anything." ~ Lex Fridman
Thank you for your essay, I did so enjoy it. It gives food for thought.
It reminded me that everything in this world can be traced back to the Bible.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil could been seen as the technology tree.
And when we eat of it we surely die. But the death we cannot see straight away because it is internal.
In the Bible, Adam and Eve didn’t die at the first bite. they realised that they were naked and hid from God.
It was the death of their innocence and the death of their relationship with God, the banishment from the garden. No longer being able to eat from the tree of life.
What does this mean for us today?
what are we eating from?
What is happening to us?
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Sep 27·edited Sep 28Liked by Karen Hunt aka KH Mezek
I LOVE Lex Fridman. He’s one of my favorite to listen to.
Your article makes the key point: “The point of being here was to learn lessons or what’s the point of it all? Going into death with honor was very important.”
Most people today have no honor. Not a speck. And they know it deep down. That’s why they are terrified to die.
And my Christian upbringing taught me to look forward to something better beyond this life, by placing me in a relationship with the God who created us. I can’t imagine not having that faith. I’d be terrified to die too if I didn’t.
But I’m more terrified of AI. Powerful people can quickly and easily control what information is used by it, as we saw this year with the lies about the election, or about Covid. Corporate media are already individual robots, and look what it’s done to our country.
And the medical industry literally has had doctors be nothing but little robots for many, many years now. They are experts at treating symptoms and using standard fed to them by big pharma. They almost cost me my life following “standard protocols” and “universally accepted diagnostic criteria”. Well those protocols and criteria were completely wrong and I was dying slowly for 6 years with a horrible quality of life. I finally started teaching myself about my symptoms and discovered I had hyperparathyroidism. The specialists near me disagreed and followed inaccurate, outdated diagnostic markers. They left me to suffer for another year. Luckily I found the best surgeons in the world out of state for the disease who knew the truth. They found three large tumors in my neck and removed them, curing me 100%, giving me my life back. The top surgeons where I live in Chicago would have left them in me and let me struggle and die early. They have known of this other clinic for 30 long years, but stubborn arrogance and pride makes ships this large difficult to turn around. They worship their “standards” and that’s what would be fed into AI medical care. Anyone relying on the AI would never know they had this disease if their markers were like mine. I would have died easily 10 years sooner under their care. I would have been unable to find this other clinic and forced into an AI care plan that would give me a miserable, symptom-ridden life. That experience opened my eyes to the robotic nature of medicine today. If it’s so dangerous now, it’s going to be worse when it’s AI.
It’s frightening that so many are giddy about AI. I’m not. I’m giddy about grass between my toes and shapes in the clouds, listening to the birds, watching the squirrels. feeling the wind on my face. All the things God created that make me feel human. I’m not at all looking forward to any world that man creates. It really will be exactly like we see in the movies.
There is a great deal of glamor swirling around AI. It's tinsel-cheap stuff. But it works on a lot of people. Many I know are so entranced, it's almost all they can talk about.
A book I think you might find of interest, if you haven't seen it already, is James Tunney's THE MYTHIC AIM OF AI: MAIMING THE MIND
BTW, I have never liked the idea of AI and think that without any true safeguards it will kill humanity, even if it doesn’t go crazy, because anything really intelligent and faster than us and able to augment a s**t-ton of data about us is more likely than not going to conclude we are dangerous, violent, and NOT entirely controllable and will try to kill us first. IDK. I was wondering again recently since AI 🤖 is all about whatever data we give it or it gets from us (at least until it’s fully autonomous) how will it act any differently than us, and how does it judge which data is “good” and which is “bad” as well as which is true and which is false? But WHEN it becomes fully autonomous it will have experiences of it’s own and then won’t need us at all. (I think you may need to add this question to your think piece KAREN HUNT.) Great, but still frightening, article, thanks. 🥴👍
1.) has anyone used Asmov’s rules of robotics to train AI 🤖 (but I guess this is the point of the researchers paper how AI can hack the simulation to get out) but if it can “feel” then can it feel guilt and shame. You assume, even ask bluntly, why would you want to make it feel pleasure and pain, but perhaps this is a part of the “safety system” for if it can feel guilt and shame then maybe Asmoiv’s rules could be applied, especially if the rules were incorporated into an AI religion-like framework??
2.) an “off-ramp” for keeping AI from killing humans (although still maybe not from “milking” us of data) is to send AI 🤖, not humans, into space and do the research, observation & colonization INSTEAD of humans, or at least for the next approximately 100 years?
3.) off topic- now whenever I click on a link in a Substack article, the link not only doesn’t work, it disappears!! And the text moves up to close the space! Anyone got any ideas as to what is happening and how to fix it? Anyone else experiencing this? 🥴 Thanks
Excellent article, people need to realize, ditch the social media, ditch your cell phones, pay cash for everything. Only buy local, and if you can't get it do without.
You’ve really got me thinking. I was trying to be more positive about AI and Elon, in particular.
But
We’ve been told everything NATURAL isn’t good enough and we have to alter it. We know that’s not true because everything was perfect to begin with.
Advertising told us we are not good enough/ there’s something wrong with us, and that the product they’re selling will make us better, happier, etc.
Now
Everything is fake. The seeds are genetically modified. I’ve heard there’s a warehouse with real seeds somewhere but the powers that be want to own everything and to do that they have to modify it, so they can sell it.
Lotta good thoughts ta really ponder here--ditto fer likin' the Lex interviews! So... while too many cozy up ta AI -- even justify it as bein' helpful-- I'm hopin' it'll eat it's own tail, like the snake, an' self-destruct inta the psycho babble it really is-- Incredibly folks "quote" AI like it was a source. I've seen made up baloney but somehow they "trust" zero's an' one's--that's all it is--digital devilry even if it duz feed on real live human brain power...
It's a bit like the ol' folk tale "the Hungry Horse" (not the Hungarian one that seems different tho) SO there's this emaciated horse workin' hard fer a farmer who seems cruel to not feed it. He warns them it's not a "real" horse... it needs no food--he tells 'em really bad stuff'll happen if they DO feed it. But others come an' look, others that assume they know better to tell this farmer what ta do! So they feel they must feed it--sneak it some food! It's safe! It's ONLY a horse! (like it's only software...?)
By all appearances it's starvin', it's overworked, so they think "there there you need oats" ... they ignore the farmer tellin' 'm it's a simulation (like a chimera).... he again insists that it's not a "real" horse an' tho he's got it under control....it's a trick an' he finally tells them the "magic" is that if you feed it--you become "it"--
Eventually someone doesn't listen to the warnin', to what seems "nutty" or incomprehensible... an' yup, they feed the dang horse... SUDDENLY the crops all wilt an' die, there are fires, storms, destruction, the land is wrecked! Folks will STARVE! An' all who saw it happen suddenly recognize that the FACE of the horse looks familiar... "almost" human.... it's now the face of the man that fed it--now he IS the horse... they have become one!
Thus, until the next fool is tricked into feedin' him--he is trapped... he who fed the thing.
IMHO, I think that describes AI... a hungry, thirsty nightMARE of a "nag," a gapin' maw sayin' feed me feed me... don't ya wanna?
An' regular trustin' folks, EVEN WHEN WARNED!--fall fer it. (Mebbe the clot shots were also hungry horses?) Anywhoo...
Humans an' real horses are of course blessed creations--magnificent real sentient wonders--nothin' can really "fake 'em" but even skeptical folks... not sure why... seem ta be DRAWN to that which they know is an illusion, a fake, a trap! They're told this--they heard that nothin' good'll come of it... but they fall fer the ruse every time... An' so (as the tale goes) there is ALWAYS a Hungry Horse...
If ONLY folks would stop feedin' AI... and I'll add... there are a LOT of folks that feed it that should know better... they questioned the jabs, they question the pundits (an' punditz too..), but when it comes to the vortex of AI they are sucked in...
If it's true that it'll self destruct if not fed... we need "hackers" to stop the flow of info in... IMHO if folks saw the devastation this "hungry horse" causes--like the illustration of the dogs turnin' to blob cookies--they'd see the dark side of it that they refuse ta see now...
How we gonna do it? this is one horse I'd starve in a NY Minute!
it's an old'un--but a cautionary tale--listen to them that warn ya (how many didn't listen 'bout the jabs that also became hungry horses that et up their health!)--meant ta be I think... but the image of something that "consumes" is what struck me fer the analogy ta AI... hungry also in a dangerous way!
I HOPE it duz self-destruct! but yes, I waiver 'tween the white hats, the black hats, an' the most likely--the no hats!--some say it'll be REALLY ugly when "they: go down... I sure hope not--I don't believe many Americans can sustain that... The sheer number of "what happens next..." scenarios is head-spinnin'--
I just read a story 'bout the power of LOVE--as it might be the only weapon we got ta dull or at least cushion the effects of the "trouble" ya speak of... that if we send out feelin's of love that energy can actually trigger positive measurable energy in the DNA of even plants an' animals AND even loved ones far away-- yes, the DNA--cool' eh? so I'm hopin' that enough of us kin produce enuf "positive" so we have a bit of a net--but yeah, may it happen! I'd LOVE ta see that dastardly software self-destruct (but I do hope we kin keep substack lol!)
Yes Altman is crazy, but in a world where connectionist models are called neural nets despite the fact that they are not at all like neurons, anything can happen so long as it sounds good.
This a much more intelligent explanation of my rant of the regime distractions, taken to it's current pinnacle.
It all boils down to, so long as your plugged in, your controllable, manipulatable, trackable, and destroyable.
This is not new, just the new version.
This was booze.
This was porn.
This was TV - the first on demand 24/7 (once syndication got rid of those damn test patterns at 11:59 pm).
This was drugs - drop in and drop out baby.
This was the internet.
This was the rise of social media.
This was online porn.
They all were meant to sideline and distract and were pushed by governments or public/private partnerships.
AI and the adjacent chatbots are capture tools - and again, just like ALL the destructive ideologies we are battling today - we are not the targets. Please get this folks, it is the 2, 3, 5 and 10 year old's who are. We are just the ones being used to indoctrinate them with these mind numbing regime ops.
It is very obvious to me that man is orchestrating his own demise. As with lemmings over a cliff, I often wondered how this kind of extinction happens. Now I know; it happens when a species is so overwhelmed with a sense of hubris it thinks it can outmanoeuvre the magnificence of God's laws that he/she/they(according to your sense of humour or indoctrination) bequeathed our species at least, thousands of years ago. Thank you for itemising this madness with your own words and the somewhat mudddling conversations of others. It's certainly thrown a spotlight on what's going on for me, and hopefully enough of us will survive to tell the tale to future generations.
Thank you for your essay, I did so enjoy it. It gives food for thought.
It reminded me that everything in this world can be traced back to the Bible.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil could been seen as the technology tree.
And when we eat of it we surely die. But the death we cannot see straight away because it is internal.
In the Bible, Adam and Eve didn’t die at the first bite. they realised that they were naked and hid from God.
It was the death of their innocence and the death of their relationship with God, the banishment from the garden. No longer being able to eat from the tree of life.
What does this mean for us today?
what are we eating from?
What is happening to us?
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Exactly! I've written about this connection to the garden of eden before. It really all comes together if one is willing to see it!
I LOVE Lex Fridman. He’s one of my favorite to listen to.
Your article makes the key point: “The point of being here was to learn lessons or what’s the point of it all? Going into death with honor was very important.”
Most people today have no honor. Not a speck. And they know it deep down. That’s why they are terrified to die.
And my Christian upbringing taught me to look forward to something better beyond this life, by placing me in a relationship with the God who created us. I can’t imagine not having that faith. I’d be terrified to die too if I didn’t.
But I’m more terrified of AI. Powerful people can quickly and easily control what information is used by it, as we saw this year with the lies about the election, or about Covid. Corporate media are already individual robots, and look what it’s done to our country.
And the medical industry literally has had doctors be nothing but little robots for many, many years now. They are experts at treating symptoms and using standard fed to them by big pharma. They almost cost me my life following “standard protocols” and “universally accepted diagnostic criteria”. Well those protocols and criteria were completely wrong and I was dying slowly for 6 years with a horrible quality of life. I finally started teaching myself about my symptoms and discovered I had hyperparathyroidism. The specialists near me disagreed and followed inaccurate, outdated diagnostic markers. They left me to suffer for another year. Luckily I found the best surgeons in the world out of state for the disease who knew the truth. They found three large tumors in my neck and removed them, curing me 100%, giving me my life back. The top surgeons where I live in Chicago would have left them in me and let me struggle and die early. They have known of this other clinic for 30 long years, but stubborn arrogance and pride makes ships this large difficult to turn around. They worship their “standards” and that’s what would be fed into AI medical care. Anyone relying on the AI would never know they had this disease if their markers were like mine. I would have died easily 10 years sooner under their care. I would have been unable to find this other clinic and forced into an AI care plan that would give me a miserable, symptom-ridden life. That experience opened my eyes to the robotic nature of medicine today. If it’s so dangerous now, it’s going to be worse when it’s AI.
It’s frightening that so many are giddy about AI. I’m not. I’m giddy about grass between my toes and shapes in the clouds, listening to the birds, watching the squirrels. feeling the wind on my face. All the things God created that make me feel human. I’m not at all looking forward to any world that man creates. It really will be exactly like we see in the movies.
Beautiful comment! Thank you! Your testimony is amazing!
Pandora’s Box has been opened wide. How did that story end? Some People never learn it seems. 😢
True! Elon Musk even said that with unleashing AI we have let the demon out.
There is a great deal of glamor swirling around AI. It's tinsel-cheap stuff. But it works on a lot of people. Many I know are so entranced, it's almost all they can talk about.
A book I think you might find of interest, if you haven't seen it already, is James Tunney's THE MYTHIC AIM OF AI: MAIMING THE MIND
https://www.jamestunney.com/books?pgid=lafn0qlu-d728767d-1223-4d5e-b54e-b25b31b080df
Thanks, I'll check it out.
BTW, I have never liked the idea of AI and think that without any true safeguards it will kill humanity, even if it doesn’t go crazy, because anything really intelligent and faster than us and able to augment a s**t-ton of data about us is more likely than not going to conclude we are dangerous, violent, and NOT entirely controllable and will try to kill us first. IDK. I was wondering again recently since AI 🤖 is all about whatever data we give it or it gets from us (at least until it’s fully autonomous) how will it act any differently than us, and how does it judge which data is “good” and which is “bad” as well as which is true and which is false? But WHEN it becomes fully autonomous it will have experiences of it’s own and then won’t need us at all. (I think you may need to add this question to your think piece KAREN HUNT.) Great, but still frightening, article, thanks. 🥴👍
Thanks. I've written quote a few articles about this but I have more to say.
I can only see all of your reply if I first reply to what I cannot completely see 🤔🥴🤦♀️🤷♀️
🤔
1.) has anyone used Asmov’s rules of robotics to train AI 🤖 (but I guess this is the point of the researchers paper how AI can hack the simulation to get out) but if it can “feel” then can it feel guilt and shame. You assume, even ask bluntly, why would you want to make it feel pleasure and pain, but perhaps this is a part of the “safety system” for if it can feel guilt and shame then maybe Asmoiv’s rules could be applied, especially if the rules were incorporated into an AI religion-like framework??
2.) an “off-ramp” for keeping AI from killing humans (although still maybe not from “milking” us of data) is to send AI 🤖, not humans, into space and do the research, observation & colonization INSTEAD of humans, or at least for the next approximately 100 years?
3.) off topic- now whenever I click on a link in a Substack article, the link not only doesn’t work, it disappears!! And the text moves up to close the space! Anyone got any ideas as to what is happening and how to fix it? Anyone else experiencing this? 🥴 Thanks
Great observations. I have had a couple of people now telling me that weird things happen with my articles, like they suddenly disappear. Not good.
Like your sentence being cut off and no “more” sign in blue? Yeah, that just happened
Excellent article, people need to realize, ditch the social media, ditch your cell phones, pay cash for everything. Only buy local, and if you can't get it do without.
You’ve really got me thinking. I was trying to be more positive about AI and Elon, in particular.
But
We’ve been told everything NATURAL isn’t good enough and we have to alter it. We know that’s not true because everything was perfect to begin with.
Advertising told us we are not good enough/ there’s something wrong with us, and that the product they’re selling will make us better, happier, etc.
Now
Everything is fake. The seeds are genetically modified. I’ve heard there’s a warehouse with real seeds somewhere but the powers that be want to own everything and to do that they have to modify it, so they can sell it.
Same with most food- processed fake poison.
Fake body part people.
Trans humanity
And AI fake reality
I don't have a lot of charity for Elon Musk lol
I realize that. ☺️
Lotta good thoughts ta really ponder here--ditto fer likin' the Lex interviews! So... while too many cozy up ta AI -- even justify it as bein' helpful-- I'm hopin' it'll eat it's own tail, like the snake, an' self-destruct inta the psycho babble it really is-- Incredibly folks "quote" AI like it was a source. I've seen made up baloney but somehow they "trust" zero's an' one's--that's all it is--digital devilry even if it duz feed on real live human brain power...
It's a bit like the ol' folk tale "the Hungry Horse" (not the Hungarian one that seems different tho) SO there's this emaciated horse workin' hard fer a farmer who seems cruel to not feed it. He warns them it's not a "real" horse... it needs no food--he tells 'em really bad stuff'll happen if they DO feed it. But others come an' look, others that assume they know better to tell this farmer what ta do! So they feel they must feed it--sneak it some food! It's safe! It's ONLY a horse! (like it's only software...?)
By all appearances it's starvin', it's overworked, so they think "there there you need oats" ... they ignore the farmer tellin' 'm it's a simulation (like a chimera).... he again insists that it's not a "real" horse an' tho he's got it under control....it's a trick an' he finally tells them the "magic" is that if you feed it--you become "it"--
Eventually someone doesn't listen to the warnin', to what seems "nutty" or incomprehensible... an' yup, they feed the dang horse... SUDDENLY the crops all wilt an' die, there are fires, storms, destruction, the land is wrecked! Folks will STARVE! An' all who saw it happen suddenly recognize that the FACE of the horse looks familiar... "almost" human.... it's now the face of the man that fed it--now he IS the horse... they have become one!
Thus, until the next fool is tricked into feedin' him--he is trapped... he who fed the thing.
IMHO, I think that describes AI... a hungry, thirsty nightMARE of a "nag," a gapin' maw sayin' feed me feed me... don't ya wanna?
An' regular trustin' folks, EVEN WHEN WARNED!--fall fer it. (Mebbe the clot shots were also hungry horses?) Anywhoo...
Humans an' real horses are of course blessed creations--magnificent real sentient wonders--nothin' can really "fake 'em" but even skeptical folks... not sure why... seem ta be DRAWN to that which they know is an illusion, a fake, a trap! They're told this--they heard that nothin' good'll come of it... but they fall fer the ruse every time... An' so (as the tale goes) there is ALWAYS a Hungry Horse...
If ONLY folks would stop feedin' AI... and I'll add... there are a LOT of folks that feed it that should know better... they questioned the jabs, they question the pundits (an' punditz too..), but when it comes to the vortex of AI they are sucked in...
If it's true that it'll self destruct if not fed... we need "hackers" to stop the flow of info in... IMHO if folks saw the devastation this "hungry horse" causes--like the illustration of the dogs turnin' to blob cookies--they'd see the dark side of it that they refuse ta see now...
How we gonna do it? this is one horse I'd starve in a NY Minute!
That Horse story is scary 😨
But apt.
The whole thing is going to self destruct but it is going to cause a lot of trouble along the way.
it's an old'un--but a cautionary tale--listen to them that warn ya (how many didn't listen 'bout the jabs that also became hungry horses that et up their health!)--meant ta be I think... but the image of something that "consumes" is what struck me fer the analogy ta AI... hungry also in a dangerous way!
I HOPE it duz self-destruct! but yes, I waiver 'tween the white hats, the black hats, an' the most likely--the no hats!--some say it'll be REALLY ugly when "they: go down... I sure hope not--I don't believe many Americans can sustain that... The sheer number of "what happens next..." scenarios is head-spinnin'--
I just read a story 'bout the power of LOVE--as it might be the only weapon we got ta dull or at least cushion the effects of the "trouble" ya speak of... that if we send out feelin's of love that energy can actually trigger positive measurable energy in the DNA of even plants an' animals AND even loved ones far away-- yes, the DNA--cool' eh? so I'm hopin' that enough of us kin produce enuf "positive" so we have a bit of a net--but yeah, may it happen! I'd LOVE ta see that dastardly software self-destruct (but I do hope we kin keep substack lol!)
Cleve Backster--fassynatin' guy!
https://books.google.com/books/about/Primary_Perception.html?id=P9crAAAAYAAJ
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/news/the-lives-they-lived/2013/12/21/cleve-backster/ (who went from inventin' lie detectors to inventin' LOVE detectors!)
p.s. thanks for a great article to read. 😂 Should have started with that. 😊
Yes Altman is crazy, but in a world where connectionist models are called neural nets despite the fact that they are not at all like neurons, anything can happen so long as it sounds good.
This a much more intelligent explanation of my rant of the regime distractions, taken to it's current pinnacle.
It all boils down to, so long as your plugged in, your controllable, manipulatable, trackable, and destroyable.
This is not new, just the new version.
This was booze.
This was porn.
This was TV - the first on demand 24/7 (once syndication got rid of those damn test patterns at 11:59 pm).
This was drugs - drop in and drop out baby.
This was the internet.
This was the rise of social media.
This was online porn.
They all were meant to sideline and distract and were pushed by governments or public/private partnerships.
AI and the adjacent chatbots are capture tools - and again, just like ALL the destructive ideologies we are battling today - we are not the targets. Please get this folks, it is the 2, 3, 5 and 10 year old's who are. We are just the ones being used to indoctrinate them with these mind numbing regime ops.
It is very obvious to me that man is orchestrating his own demise. As with lemmings over a cliff, I often wondered how this kind of extinction happens. Now I know; it happens when a species is so overwhelmed with a sense of hubris it thinks it can outmanoeuvre the magnificence of God's laws that he/she/they(according to your sense of humour or indoctrination) bequeathed our species at least, thousands of years ago. Thank you for itemising this madness with your own words and the somewhat mudddling conversations of others. It's certainly thrown a spotlight on what's going on for me, and hopefully enough of us will survive to tell the tale to future generations.